ARTHUR BROWN - ALQUIMIA - MARK JENKINS
are
THE CEREMONY OF INNOCENCE
E-Live Festival 2008
Auditorium of the T.U., Eindhoven, NL
11 October 2008, 300 visitors
very (very) good audience recording.
my old mz-r30 with ecm717 mic-soundforge-cdr-flac.
no equalizing was done, only upped the volume
and balanced the levels.
also cut out a little space between the songs.
have no idea about the setlist,
tried to find the original cd...
8 songs with the encore "fire"
seeing a lot of interest for arthur brown,
here's a recording you cant miss!!!
the recording came out very fine,
but i had a lot of mixed emotions about this concert.
a review;
Leading up to the second concert i was very happy to get the chance to speak
to Mark Jenkins who had a stand. Later David Vorhaus ("White Noise") also joined the stand.
They'd done an amazing set at an earlier edition of E-Live, and from that i was more than curious
to hear what they had in store tonight. They now worked under a new moniker 'The Ceremony of Innocence'
and were joined by two vocalists, Alquimia and the legendary Arthur Brown ("The Crazy World of...").
They got together only recently and it was obvious they needed a little time to find each other,
also not helped by the fact there seemed to be some technical problems in the beginning.
The concept was very clear though; also because Mark Jenkins had explained a bit already.
I think, in short, it was to join electronics and nature. Mashed up nature sounds,
processed through samplers and further worked with software manipulation.
David Vorhaus was doing a fine layering drone, playing a very novel instrument.
It looked like an electronic dulcimer. It was a string instrument played upright,
and although the left hand fingering on the string board was kind of traditional,
the right hand only played electronic buttons. I'm not sure how it all worked,
but it sounded amazing. Drones, a little metallic, but with all the slides and bends of the real strings.
On vocals it was first Arthur Brown doing a reading, which was a bit uncertain. Later he switched to song,
which tied in far better to the concept. It slowly started to work out better and better. I think it was all improvisation.
Later Alquimia did a solo. Basic vocalisations and notes treated by electronics. Very beautiful...
but very strong in their own right leaving little room for the others to add.
Later both she and Arthur Brown joined forces and a more balanced sound was produced
that tied in far better with the electronic workings of Jenkins/Vorhaus. Now it was getting really good!
They probably need a little more time together to get everything sorted out. The concept is great though!
As a final encore it had to be Arthur Brown doing a short rendition of his most famous song 'Fire'.
I think in all it was an amazing show. It was nowhere near 'easy-listening',
but it held so many new and challenging sounds it was eyes closed and enjoy all the time.
I'm happy to have bought the 'The Ceremony of Innocence' CD amongst many others ;)
well,
enjoy!
leave a comment and listen to the samples.....